


Love and Loss

by Bladesilverred, Jessmarie123



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Reunions, Short, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21720715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bladesilverred/pseuds/Bladesilverred, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessmarie123/pseuds/Jessmarie123
Summary: A human AU where Yellow and Blue have separated due to their differences in coping with grief. They meet again on their daughter’s 20th birthday.
Relationships: Blue Diamond/Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Love and Loss

**Author's Note:**

> My first collaboration! This one was really fun to write, and even thought it is extremely different from normal writing style, I think it came out well. I wrote Yellow’s part, and the lovely Jessmarie123 wrote Blue’s.
> 
> Here is the art the story is based on, so you can give the artist some love: https://yellowclodority.tumblr.com/post/176165152206/yellow-blue-human-au-where-yellow-and

**BEEP BEEP**

...

Yellow Diamond rolled around, hitting the OFF button on the obnoxious alarm. She rubbed her eyes sleepily, getting ready to jump out of bed and greet the day. But, just as she’s about to push herself up, she remembers what day it is. 

Pink’s birthday.

She lets herself lay in bed for another five minutes. She had cancelled all her appointments for the day, giving herself a rare day off, even allowing extra time to get ready. 

When she finally makes it out of bed, she heads to the bathroom first. Yellow can feel her short blonde hair flopping as she walked, a feeling she hated. After applying her usual gel, she looks back at her reflection. Wincing at the deep grooves under her eyes, she applies some concealer, and pointed winged eyeliner. Satisfied, she goes to put on her clothes. 

Her outfit is simple. A blazer and slacks. Indistinguishable from her usual work attire. It’s simple and elegant, just the way she likes it. She walks out of her spacious closet, but not before catching a glimpse of herself in the full sized mirror. Pristine.

...

Blue Diamond awoke as she always did on visiting days, with a screaming alarm interrupting the melancholy peace of her dreams. She blindly reaches her arm around the pillow, searching for the source of the calm-breaking sound. Once her fingers find the icy phone, she silences the alarm, and settles a bit more deeply into her pillow. 

As she faces the temptation to drift back into quiet nothingness, thoughts, feelings, anxieties drifted in, pushing her temptation further. Just as she was about to surrender back into the quiet, she remembers what day it is. Her eyes, sticky with tears and with heavy eyelids, slowly drift open.

_Pink’s day._

_She would have been twenty today._

_She should have been._

_She should be._

...

Yellow straightens her bed, pulling the duvet up. She fluffs the one pillow on her side, pausing before doing the same to the other pillow. The indigo diamond on the pillow beside hers sends a jolt of pain through her heart. I need to get new bedsheets, she thought grimly.

But today is not the day to dwell on that mistake. She has other plans. Flowers need to be picked up, and she wants to spend all of her allotted time at the cemetery today. She hurries to put on her high heeled shoes.

As she’s grabbing the keys to her car, a tear slips down her cheeks. She sighs. Today was a day of loss. There was no getting around it, no matter how much she tried. She removes her shoes, walking back up to her bedroom. 

Almost unconsciously, she goes to the top drawer of her jewelry box, bringing out a small blue canister. Yellow opens it, revealing a pair of decent sized diamond earrings. A gift from her wife. Ex-wife. 

Using nimble fingers, she reaches up to place them in her ears, her manicured nails gripping the metal. She sighs. She’s lost so much in the last few years. 

…

Tears start to stream from Blue’s deep cobalt eyes; she squints in hopes of stopping the rivers down her face, to no avail. 

_She should be here. She should be here, I should be the one who…_

The rivers turn to waterfalls.

_I…_

Blue sits up in bed, silver hair framing her tear-filled face. She swings her nightgown-covered legs to the edge of the four-poster bed, the bed of a size that haunts her, a bed too large for one person.

_They should be here. They both should. I should be..._

_I can’t. I can’t._

Any composed thought that was in Blue’s head vanishes, crashes, shatters. Any ounce of peace left from her sleep had fallen into the chasm of longing and loss and heartbreak that haunted Blue daily. She feels herself slipping, slipping from stability, slipping from herself, slipping from consciousness. She pulls her knees up on the bed, wraps her arms around them shakily.

_No._

_No._

_I can’t._

_N-not t-today._

...

Yellow walks back to her bed, sitting down heavily. She doesn’t want to go to the cemetery today. Today is a disruption of her schedule. Her carefully planned schedule that has no room for feelings, no room for thinking. 

Except today. Except for the day of her dead daughter’s 20th birthday. Today was the day she allowed herself time to think, time to feel. And she hated it. 

Tears were slipping down her face, making black rivers down her cheeks. She let them, knowing she would only make a bigger mess if she were to wipe her face. She flops back onto the bed. _Pull it together,_ she thinks to herself, _it’s just another day. You can do this._

But it wasn’t just another day. It was Pink’s birthday. And Yellow was going to the cemetery. 

Going to the cemetery wasn’t an uncommon occasion, not that anyone would know. She frequented her daughter’s gravestone on the first Friday of the month. Without fail, every month at exactly 2 in the afternoon. She always took the afternoon off from work, something she saved for this day, and this day alone. Bringing lunch and a strong mug of coffee, she would go alone.

She chose the date because the first Friday of the month was when Blue would have lunch with her mother. She knew she would be alone, uninterrupted with her grief.

Often times she would talk to Pink, as if she were there. She would tell her what was happening, what she missed. Other times, she would just sit in silence, thinking about times past. Always she would cry. It was the one time she allowed herself to let her guard down. The one time she was allowed to feel. Outside of the cemetery, she was Yellow Diamond, the fearless, the stoic, the strong. Emotions had no place in her world, not when there was too much to do. Too much work.

…

Tears flowing behind a mask of hair, Blue reaches a shaky hand to the box on the stand next to her bed, pulls the box to her knees. She attempts to gently shake a single tube out of the box, but cigarettes scatter on the floor.

Mind spinning, chest full of darkness, arms and hands shaking tears flowing rapidly down her face, she extends her legs, slides off of the bed, landing on top of cigarettes on the plush rug. Blue grasps out, shakily grabs a cigarette and the lighter off of the rug, carefully places the former in her mouth. Shakily brushing her flowing shimmering hair back, she brings a flame to the tube as she’s done too many times to count in the last 5 years.

A few desperate breaths in quickly turn to calmer yet guilty drags. She inhales the dark smoke, knowing full-well the dangers but finding a beauty in the swirls of smoke, a desperation for the bits of calm release it gives her, and a temptation in the self-destructiveness of it.

 _At least, with this, the temporary clarity from whatever combination of horrible things I’ve inhaled, I can pretend, once again, that nothing’s wrong, I can pretend that I don’t feel, that I don’t hurt. I can...be Yellow._ A slight frown has claimed a home on her face at this point, and intensifies into a pained grimace for a moment before returning.

With nothing left but the end of the tube, she sticks it back in the box, picks up the rest of the cigarettes under and around her, and stands up, the hem of her navy short-sleeved nightgown dancing around her ankles. She gently wipes the tears dripping down her cheeks, and swallows the rest of the sorrow in her throat.

_Better late than never._

She places the box back on the antique wooden night stand, and pulls the chain for the adjacent lamp. The room illuminates with a dim glow, and Blue gently steps over to the closet to begin to get ready for the day ahead.

...

Yellow sighed, rolling onto her stomach, burying her face in the duvet. _What a bunch of bullshit,_ she thinks, _look where being strong got you. Alone._

After Pink’s death, Yellow’s perfect life had crumbled to dust. Blue, her beloved wife, fell into a deep depression, and nothing she could say or do could pull her out of it. The once strong, independent woman was reduced to nothing. Blue would spend days in bed, only rousing with much prodding from Yellow. She stopped working, instead spending her time out of bed in the cemetery. She was a ghost of the woman Yellow loved, and it broke her heart. 

While Yellow buried her feelings in work, the fissure in their relationship had grown. Within months of their daughter being gone, they had had more fights than they had ever had in their entire relationship. Most centered on their emotions, or lack of. Blue accused Yellow of being heartless, and Yellow would insist that moving on was healthy and necessary. 

The last fight had been the worst. It was when Yellow had left. She was fed up with her wife’s constant depression, she couldn’t stand one more second with the shell of a woman she had once loved. She couldn’t bear the constant reminder of everything she had lost. So she left. 

It broke her heart. She regretted it as soon as she walked out of the door, but Yellow was not a woman to go back on her word. 

…

Blue busies herself from the emotions that attempt to well back up through the nicotine fog by gathering and dressing in her attire for the day. Beginning with underwear, shapewear, and pantyhose, she rustles through her armoire to find each piece and delicately layers them on. Clothes are easy to find in the armoire, as it’s filled barely halfway to capacity. Blue shoves out of mind the one who shared this armoire with her, and gently steps into the crinoline she cherishes. 

The metal hoop of the garment falls around her ankles, and the soft cotton waistline sits like any other skirt. But it feels different, to Blue. Dressing up like this, wearing these delicate undergarments and the Victorian-style long-sleeved gown that she slides into next lets Blue pretend, for a bit, that things are different.

That she’s in a different time, a different place, a different life. Maybe one where she’s okay. 

The black gown hugs her waist, the hem swirling around her ankles, the dramatic sleeves framing her slim wrists. Still attempting to fight off every intrusive thought of reality, Blue slips on a bracelet and a blue teardrop necklace, watching her own sullen, tired, raw face in the mirror on the armoire door as she does so. Every line on her face represents hours of sorrow, of worry, of regret, of exhaustion. And she despises each one. Sighing deeply, she slips on the last touch of her outfit, an elegant wide-brimmed black hat to match the era, texture, and feel of the gown, and to pull her further into another time, another place, another life. 

...

Yellow pressed her head into the bed, wanting to disappear into the void. The earrings she had put on dug into her skin, a painful reminder. She choked back a sob. 

_I can’t do this. Not today. I’ll just go to work today, I’ll call up some clients._

She lifted her head up, frowning at the two black smudges on her duvet. _This is a mess. I am a mess. Does anything even matter anymore?_

Yellow sits up, wiping her eyes. Shaking her head, she takes a shaky breath. She clenched her fists, trying to steady herself. _I need to do this. For Pink._

She stands up. With her back straight, she walks to the bathroom, reapplies her makeup, and straightens her hair. This time, she barely looks in the mirror, careful to keep her thoughts blank. Mechanically, she goes to her car, and begins to drive. The route is ingrained in her muscle memory, and she goes on autopilot. 

…

Having stepped into shoes and grabbed her phone and handbag, Blue descends the stairs to exit the spacious home she once shared with Yellow and Pink. She briskly walks through the marble-countered kitchen, picking up off the table the bouquet of flowers that she had purchased the previous day for the occasion. She ignores in her periphery the wine bottles and cigarette boxes strewn all over the formerly spotless kitchen. A glint of cobalt metal on the edge of the countertop catches her eye. The nicotine buzz fades, her head floods with memories and emotion, her phone dings with the arrival of her taxi; she hastily grabs the earrings and rushes out the door.

...

It’s a short drive, about 8 minutes to the flower shop. After that, it’s just a few streets to the cemetery. Yellow sits in silence, not even bothering to turn on the radio. She doesn’t let a single thought fall through her walls; keeping her mind still. There would be no more tears today. 

…

The ride is quick as always, but it feels like an eternity in the hurricane of Blue’s head. She’s relieved when the car pulls into the dreary cemetery, relieved to pay the driver and get out into the fresh air to pull air into her lungs, and relieved to be able to have another drag of a cigarette before stepping over into the heaviness that always seems to permeate the air around her daughter’s grave. 

...

As she exits the car, Yellow grabs the flowers, and her purse, and walks up the hill to her daughter. Once she reaches the gravestone marked with a pink rose, she drops to her knees, placing the flowers before it. She stays in this position for a few seconds, allowing the dull ache to sit in her chest. 

_I’m so sorry,_ she thinks. But tears begin to prickle at her eyes, and she wills herself to stand. She keeps her head bowed, staring at Pink’s name. She sighs. 

...

Taking slow steps past rows of tombstones under the cloudy sky, the silver-haired woman wraps her fingers around the small box concealed within the purse, then stops suddenly. All possibility of avoiding thoughts and feelings vanishes with the image before her.  
Ahead lies the headstone with the intricate design of a pink rose above her name, the wonderous year of her birth and the year that everything was lost. This isn’t shocking. But the stern, svelte woman in a black suit with the familiar haircut is.

## Reunion

“Yellow...?” Blue can hardly speak the name before the tears return once again.

Yellow recognizes the voice immediately. The blonde turns around, meeting cerulean eyes. She stare into them, still fighting to keep her mind blank. “...Blue…!”

Blue looks into the familiar amber eyes. 

_I…_

_What am I...?_

_What is she...?_

Words squeak out of her mouth. “What are you…” Her voice trails off, leaving the unfinished question hanging in the air. She pulls a hand to her face in attempt to hide the tears that are beginning to cascade.

But tears are waterfalling beyond the point that Blue can stop them, as thoughts do the same. 

_I never thought I’d see her again._

_I didn’t want to. She clearly didn’t either._

_Last I saw her face, we wanted nothing to be too each other. I was too weak for her. She was...she was….heartless._

As she watches her former lover cry, Yellow’s walls begin to break, and she realizes the gravity of the situation. This would be the first time that she and Blue were in the cemetery since they buried Pink. Her carefully planned visits always went unnoticed, and she knew Blue thought she had never returned here. 

Yellow’s pale cheeks burn. _What a hypocrite I am. Always telling Blue how she should move on, yet I come here. Pathetic._

But the words that come out of her mouth are gentle, hiding her inner turmoil. “She would have been 20 today.”

Her words pull Blue slightly from the tirade of hurt exploding through her veins..

A slight smile ghosts her grave face. “Yeah.”

She looks at the ground, knowing full well that tears were there, wishing they weren’t, wishing that she could wasn’t. The two women stand in a tense silence as cool fall wind blows through the overcast area.

_She should be twenty today._

_She should be here._

_I should be the one in the ground._

_That would be better for Yellow._

_And for Pink._

_And for me. For everyone._

_Why did I come? Why am I here? This is a mistake._

_But...wait._

_I’ve never seen her here before._

Yellow studies her face. It’s sunken in, more so than the last time she’d seen her. It had been years. The bags under her eyes, seem to have grown. _She looks so tired._

Tearfully yet sharply, Blue breaks the silence like a knife, silver hair blowing stormily. “You never come here.”

“She’s not really here, it doesn’t-- I--” Yellow’s throat closes. The tears threaten to spill out, but she wills them back. 

With Yellow’s words, a devastation begins to build in Blue, a devastation that threatens to destroy any remaining stability left in her presence.

There’s a pause. Then, Yellow speaks the truth. “I come on the first Friday of every month usually.”

Blue’s bright eyes widen. “That’s when I--” She starts, looking back at the sharp blonde as confusion crosses her face.

“Go to brunch with your mother,” Yellow interrupts calmly. 

“Yeah,” is all Blue can manage.

The blonde gives a curt nod, her gaze having dropped back to the ground. 

But white-haired woman barely notices, as she begins to fall down her thoughts.

_She remembers? Huh? I didn’t think--_

_But._

_She, she avoids me? Why would--_

_Why wouldn’t she? I’m too weak for her. She basically said so last time we had words_

_But._

_I…_

_I…_

_I’m so confused._

_Does she think of me?_

In the depths of her thoughts, Blue studies her former love’s face. The sharp cheekbones, the amber eyes, full lips, soft short hair. A glint of metal catches her eye once again, a glint of golden metal this time.

After an eternity, Blue speaks again. “You’re wearing the earrings?”

Amber eyes open slightly wider. “Yeah.” She hesitates before carefully continuing. “I mean, Pink wasn’t the only one I was missing today.” She waves a hand towards the grave, still looking down. 

Blue is silent, and Yellow wishes she could be anywhere else. She can feel the tension between them, almost crackle with intensity. She nearly sighs in relief when Blue begins to speak again.

The melancholy woman gestures at the grave and asks to Yellow, “Do you mind if I have a few moments alone here?”

Yellow steps quickly away, heading back towards her car.

Blue kneels, and takes some time to lay down the bouquet of blue roses next to a similar set of yellow roses already sitting there. She gently, softly, tearfully expresses her words to her daughter, sings a gently song that she used to use as a lullaby—“Blue Moon” by a favorite singer by hers, and sits, allowing tears to fall in hurt and confusion and fear and in loss. 

As she sits, having brought love to her daughter, her mind drifts to Yellow, and an idea flashes through her head like electricity. She gently touches the tombstone one last time, looks longingly toward a lost part of her past that she wishes she could get back, then toward another part she can’t tell whether she’s completely lost or not.

Yellow continues, to her car, and is nearly there, but something stops her. Maybe it’s the deep longing for Blue’s presence, or maybe it’s her desire to be with Pink for a bit longer. She comes to a halt.

No more than five seconds later, she hears her name. She looks up to find Blue, eyes overflowing with tears, beckoning her back to the Pink’s grave. 

She walks back, slowly. With each step, her mind screams at her to run. Run away from the only living person Yellow has left to love. But she keeps going. Step after step. 

And when she returns, she finds Blue is again the one to talk. “Yellow,” she speaks softly, “My cab is taking me to coffee. Would you like to join me?”

Yellow looks down, her heart beating fast. “I should get back to the office.” 

An age old lie.

Blue feels a wave of familiar sadness and disappointment come on, and attempts to swallow it in its tracks.

Yellow feels rather than sees the disappointment in the other woman. She hears Blue’s phone ding, and a car pulls up on the road across the cemetery. Blue takes a few steps in the direction.

The blonde woman feels as if a piece of her heart was leaving. So, closing her eyes against the pain, she speaks words she has never said before. 

“It can wait.”

She steps beside her former lover, meeting her eyes. She could read the emotions coursing through her like a book. Surprise. Sadness. Longing.

As she stares into those cobalt eyes, she notices something. Swaying as she walks, Blue’s earrings catch in the light. Blue diamonds, the same size and cut as the ones hanging from her own ears. Her wedding present. 

The corners of her lips curl up, and the tension begins to fade from her shoulders. Yellow feels her heart lighten. For the first time in years, she feels hope. 

A slender hand reaches up to her ears, brushing the dangling gemstones. 

The pair of women walk between the graves to the car under the grey sky in a way that is familiar yet new, in sorrow, in devastation, in loss, in confusion and insecurity, in doubt in curiosity, in so much pain and hurt, but also in hope.

Yellow reaches the cab first, holding the door open. Her lips stretch into a smile. A genuine smile. 

A smile that is returned.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
